In Europe, the revolutionary transformation of the ruling systems
and state structures began with a bang: In 1789 the French
Revolution broke out in Paris, and its motto "Liberte, Egalite,
Fraternite"—Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood—took on an irrepressible
force. A fundamental reorganization of society followed the French
Revolution. The ideas behind the revolution were manifest in
Napoleon's Code Civil, which he imposed on many European nations.
The 19th century also experienced a transformation of society from
another source: The Industrial Revolution established within society
a poorer working class that stood in opposition to the merchant and
trading middle class. The nascent United States was shaken by an
embittered civil war. The economic growth that set in following that
war was accompanied by the development of imperialist endeavors and
its rise to the status of a Great Power.

Liberty Leading the People,
allegory of the 1830 July revolution that deposed the French
monarchy,
with Marianne as the personification of liberty,
contemporary painting by Eugene Delacroix.

The Benelux Countries

1815-1914

Austria was forced to cede its territories in the southern
Netherlands to France under the terms of the 1797 Treaty of
Campo Formio. At the Congress of Vienna this area was joined with the
united Netherlands, which were supposed to act as a buffer zone to
France. However confessional, political, and cultural differences led to
the separation of Belgium in 1830. At this point in time the
industrialization process in the Netherlands and in Belgium began. The
Belgian economy benefitted from colonial territories in Africa. The
Dutch kings also ruled over Luxembourg as Grand Dukes. Differences in
the laws of succession led to Luxembourg's separation from the
Netherlands in 1890.

The Netherlands and Luxembourg

Democratic structures were gradually implemented in the
Netherlands, which was ruled by the Orange-Nassau dynasty. Luxembourg
became independent in the 1890s.

The Congress of Vienna in 1815 created the United Kingdom of the
Netherlands, including present-day Belgium, the former Austrian
Netherlands.

During the course of the Revolution of 1845, King 2William
II, son of the conservative 1William I, was forced to agree to a
constitutional monarchy.

After his death the following year, his son 3William III took the throne.

1 William I, King of the Netherlands2 William II, King of the Netherlands3 William III, King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg, ca.
1865

During his reign, the parliament was able
to significantly expand its authority.

In the 1880s, the Netherlands
experienced an economic boom that also promoted the development of the
4 workers movement, out of which the Social Democratic Workers party
emerged in 1894.

4 Congress of the socialist Second
Internationale in Amsterdam,
August
14-20, 1904

Worker at the loom, one of many paintings by
Vincent van Gogh
of
weavers working at machines, 1884

Luxembourg had been granted the status of a grand duchy at the Congress
of Vienna but was governed over until 1867 by the Netherlands. It was
thus able to profit from the Netherlands' new liberal constitution in
1848.

In 1898 5Queen Wilhelmina ascended the throne.

5 Queen Wilhelmina wearing
her coronation robe in 1898

Luxembourg law did
not allow for a female monarch, however, and the country was therefore
released from its union with the Netherlands.

When 6Napoleon III purchased the country in 1867, this created a
crisis, as Prussia did not approve. The London Conference of May 11,
1867, ended the Luxembourg crisis by assuring its independence and
neutrality. This agreement was disregarded by the Germans at the
beginning of World War 1 when they occupied the country.

6 Napoleon III, French Emperor, painting by F.X.
Winterhalter, 1857

Belgium's Political and Economic Progress

Belgium had a liberal state system as early as 1830, was the most
industrialized country in Europe after Great Britain, and also
endeavored to gain colonies in Africa.

In 1815, the Congress of Vienna merged the Catholic region of the
Austrian Netherlands with the Republic of United Netherlands situated
north of it, which was reigned over by the Protestant House of
Orange-Nassau. Dutch became the official language, which wounded the
national pride of the French-speaking population. This and other
discriminatory policies, as well as political and economic restrictions,
led to a rebellion in Brussels on August 25,1830, in the wake of the
Parisian July Revolution.

Dutch soldiers were then chased out of
Brussels during the September Revolution 8 on September 26, and on
October 4,1830, the provisional Belgian government proclaimed the
country's independence.

8 Revolution of the Belgians against
the Dutch rule under William I in
1830,
wood engraving, 1864

Belgium adopted a liberal constitution on
February 7,1831, and installed a constitutional monarchy.

The anglophile Leopold I of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld was crowned
9 king on June
4, 1831.

9 Coronation ceremony of King Leopold I on 4 June 1831 at the Palace Royale in Brussels,
painting from 1856

In 1839, Luxembourg ceded the western Walloon region to the
newly independent Belgium. The Netherlands, however, did not recognize
Belgium's independence until the London Protocol of April 19,1839, but
then the country's borders were fixed and its neutrality guaranteed by
the Great Powers.

7 Belgium led the Continent economically in the first half of the 19th
century.

Domestically, the conflict between Catholic and liberal thought
over the educational policies of 1879 were resolved with a liberal
school law. Differences between the French-speaking Walloons in the
south and the Flemish speakers in the north were not only linguistic and
cultural but also represented a difference in wealth as
industrialization had been more advanced in the south.

Universal male suffrage was first implemented in 1893 as a result of a
10
general strike initiated by the Social Democrats.

7 The "castle in the-air,"
world exhibition in Antwerp, Belgium,
1894

10 The military puts down the strike
by the miners of Mons, 1893

Sir Henry Morton Stanley and
some of his African companions,
wood engraving,1890

Belgian Colonial Politics

King Leopold II sponsored tire exploration of central Africa by, among
others, Sir Henry Morton Stanley. The result of his expedition was the
founding of the Congo Free State (later Zaire).

The king was its
personal sovereign with a neutral status at the Berlin Congo conference
of 18S5. When the inhuman methods he used to exploit the country and the
unrest that resulted from them became known, he was forced to cede Congo
to Belgian governmental control in 1908.

His successor, Albert I, who
was crowned the following year, restructured the organization of the
colony.